


Winter Snuggles 2: Desire and Dependence

by Boney_M



Series: Winter Snuggles [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-07-27 16:50:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7626403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boney_M/pseuds/Boney_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In stark contrast to the cold outside, things between Nick and Judy are heating up. Made into a separate story to increase the rating to M.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Coldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcold-"

Judy heard Nick coming long before he actually arrived at the door, and opened it for him to spare him having to wrestle with the keys. He staggered in, soaked to the bone, and dropped the cooler bag he was carrying just inside the door. Judy rolled her eyes at him and pointed towards the bathroom, where she had run a nice, hot bath. Nick stared at it for a moment, then started stripping off his soaked clothes.

"-coldcoldcoldthanksjudyyou'rethebestcoldcold-"

It was a miserable day outside, with freezing rain pouring down and drowning out all ambient noise. Knock-on effects from the broken weather controller about a week and a half ago now, the news was saying. A whole lot less violent than the storms when it was offline, but still enough to make Judy glad that it was her and Nick's day off. And then Nick had decided that what he really needed was some blackbean peppers. And Judy had idly mentioned that she could really go for some spring rolls, and next thing Nick was psyching himself up for a trip into the pouring rain.

Judy had thought it was ridiculous, but it was also harmless. The weather wasn't bad enough to be dangerous and Nick could take care of himself. So she had smiled tolerantly and allowed him to fulfill whatever primal need he had to provide food. Also, she really wanted those spring rolls.

And now he was paying the price for his foolhardiness, as his soaked shirt hit the bathroom for with a splat and he started to wriggle out of his pants. Judy averted her eyes out of habit, then remembered that they were more or less past that now and ogled him out of the corner of her eye. Moments later he was completely naked and he slid into the water with an almost obscene moan that trailed off into a gurgle as his head slid beneath the water. After a few moments he surfaced again, gasped a couple of breaths down, and leaned his chin on the edge of the tub, his eyes half-closed in bliss. "Judy. You are the greatest." She smiled at him and turned to go busy herself with paperwork while Nick indulged himself, only to be interrupted. "There's room enough for two in here, you know."

Judy paused without turning, biting her lip in thought. They'd never been fully nude in front of each other, not quite. All of Judy had been on display at one point or another, between their drunken encounter a week and a half ago and her recent penchant for sleeping topless, and she'd seen most of Nick at one point or another from ogling while he got changed or from moments ago when he had gotten into the bath. But to be fully exposed was a fresh threshold. Excitement shot through her as she considered it, and she couldn't find any reason not to. She trusted Nick to not go further than she was ready for, though in the heat of the moment she doubted there was much he could do that she wouldn't be ready and willing to try.

She turned, and she took in Nick's expression, anticipation and desire and hope. Still biting her lip, she played with the top button of her button-down shirt. "Would you like some company, Nick?"

Nick nodded eagerly, his chin tapping against the edge of the bath. "Yes. Absolutely. Very much so."

She took a step towards him, unbuttoning the top two buttons. "Would you like MY company, in your bath, without any of my clothes on?"

Nick's nodding increased, his eyes wide and his expression almost goofy. It was endlessly endearing to see him staring at her with that expression of desire, verging on worship, and it did wonders for her self-confidence as well. She took another deep breath, considering - this would, she knew, be a perfect time to turn away and say something like 'too bad' to tweak his nose a bit, but she didn't have it in her to crush him like that. She continued to undo the buttons of her shirt while she approached the bath, and reached the edge of it just as she was undoing the bottom button. The bath was built for polar bears but was partially inset into the floor, so the edge was just low enough for Nick's nose to be level with hers, and she took advantage of this to press her nose into his, and his eyes locked onto hers. Taking advantage of his distraction, she slipped her thumbs under the waistline of her pants and panties, and slipped them down her hips with a single deft motion, letting them drop to the floor. She saw Nick's ears twitch in her peripheral vision at the noise, and his eyes widened even further, but he still didn't take his eyes from hers.

"Oh, wait!" She wasn't about to crush his dreams, but she could tease him with the possibility of doing so. She turned and sauntered away, an extra little sway in her hips, and she knew for a fact that Nick's eyes had fallen to where her tail protruded from below her shirt. She grabbed the bag by the door and held it up without turning to keep from fully displaying what her near-nude state was hinting at. "Can't have this getting cold. Shall we eat in the bath?"

"You know how I said you were the greatest? And the best? I take it back. You couldn't have been. Because you just got even better."

Judy couldn't stop herself from smiling at his praise, and walked over to the fridge, smiling wider at Nick's whimper as she left his line of sight through the bathroom door. She collected a bottle of wine - they'd started to buy new bottles of the blueberry wine they'd both developed a taste for as they ran out of the ones Fru-Fru had supplied - and took it over to the doorway. "A nice drink with dinner would go well too, don't you think?"

"Judy," Nick said, a playful growl in his voice. "If you keep teasing me, there's a very real risk I'm going to chase you around this apartment and get water everywhere."

Judy approached Nick again, noting how his eyes flicked downwards to get a glimpse of all of her through her open shirt before returning to her eyes, and dropped the wine and bag by the side of the bath. "Is that supposed to dissuade me?" Nick growled again, and she shivered in delight. "Then again, it would be a pain to clean up..." She slipped her arms out of the shirt's sleeves and let it fall off her, standing bare in front of Nick's gaze.

She stood there for a long moment, letting Nick drink in the sight of her and in turn drinking in the expressions that flitted across his face, but she couldn't stretch out the moment too long because the chill of the apartment was starting to penetrate her fur. With an easy hop she jumped to the lip of the bath, and then dived in, pointing her arms so that her sleek body barely made a splash. In an instant, the chill of the air was replaced by the deep, penetrating warmth of the water.

She let herself float for a moment in sheer bliss, before turning in the water and seeking out her partner. She found him standing on the stairs at the edge of the bath, and took a moment to take in her first mostly-unobstructed view of his bare body, but couldn't linger for too long without running out of air, and she also noted that the uppermost one making a suitable seat and the second one just deep enough for Nick's head to be sticking over the edge of the bath when standing on it. She swam towards him, pointing herself at his chest, and her powerful legs let her dart into his chest and push him back onto the top stair. She took a double-pawful of his chest fur to support herself and pushed her head up and into the air and took a breath before nuzzling herself into his neck, pressing her entire bare body into his.

She disengaged her muzzle and they kissed, gently and sweetly, floating freely in the water. They continued doing so for some time, but Judy could tell she didn't have Nick's full attention. When she broke off for air, she saw his nose sniffing away - which was normal, but normally they weren't neck-deep in water, so he couldn't be smelling her. When she sniffed the air, she could smell a hint of the Chinchillese food he had brought home. She frowned. 

"You've got a compliant doe in your arms, and you're thinking about food?" Nick averted his eyes, a conflicted look on his face, before Judy realized something. "Or is that a thing for you? Do you want to see me eating the food you provided?" Nick's gaze returned to her, and she could read the gratitude in it. She ahh'd understandingly, and turned to the side of the bath. She took a moment to come to a decision and her more daring side won, and as she bent over the edge of the bath to reach for the bag, she made sure she was at an angle to give Nick the best view, and she could tell by the sudden chill on her nether regions as they were exposed to the air that there was nothing to obstruct his gaze. She straightened up again and balanced the cooler bag on the edge of the bath, pushing it over to the shallow first step where they could sit and eat, noting Nick's shellshocked expression with pride.

He finally found his voice, and answered her question. "I was thinking of it all the way home. It's... kind of silly, I know, but the thought of you eating the food I'd brought home just... felt really right."

"The big strong predator providing for his mate, hmm?" Nick nodded, embarrassed, and Judy unzipped the cooler bag and fished around inside it, taking out the small plastic tub full of spring rolls, which radiated heat into her paws. She peeled the lid off and plucked one out, watching Nick's eyes locked on her face, and took a bite out of the crispy fried surface of the roll, mmm-ing in appreciation. She did genuinely really like spring rolls, but she was playing it up a little for Nick's benefit. A look of satisfaction spread over his face, and he pulled her into his arms, and she had to lift her arms out of the way to keep the rest of the roll from getting dunked in the bathwater. "Niiick!"

"I can't help it. You're too precious."

"You're just saying that because I ate your spring roll."

Nick laughed and let Judy loose, and sat himself down on the top stair. "Did you know that was going to sound as dirty as it did?"

"Absolutely!" She laughed and licked the entire remaining length of the spring roll. "Mmm, your spring roll tastes sooo good Nick." He laughed and shoved her, and she barely managed to pop the spring roll in her mouth before she lost her balance and fell backwards into the water. She surfaced again, chewing furiously and glaring at Nick, and he just laughed harder. 

"I had to stop you before you turned my weird instincts about food into a full-on fetish."

She rolled her eyes, but had to concede the point. That would be a weird one to have to work around. She paddled back up to the top step, sat herself down, and accepted her tub of spring rolls as Nick got his blackbean peppers out. "Did you get chopsticks?"

"Never figured out how to use them. Never had to, either." He popped the top of the container off and, demonstrating, he speared a pepper with a claw and popped it into his mouth.

"Good thing you're already in the bath, that'd make a huge mess."

"That's half the fun of take-out."

The rest of the meal was fairly mild, apart from a little bit of glances back and forth at each other's bare bodies. They snuggled afterwards, and despite Nick's appreciation for her nude form being quite obvious, they decided in a murmured conversation not to go any further then and there - being full of Chinchillese food made them too content and sluggish for further sexiness.


	2. Chapter 2

Nick and Judy were preparing to face the cold of Tundratown to find somewhere to eat out for lunch, dressing in comfortable silence. Things had progressed to the point that they didn't avert their eyes from each other's nudity, but not progressed so far that it was blasé, so Nick suspected that at least part of his suggestion that they eat out was based on the fact that they'd need to change before heading out, since they were still in the clothes they had lazed around the apartment after work in last night.

The extremely interesting part of Judy changing clothes ended quickly - though not too quickly, as she'd lingered a bit on choosing her underwear with a teasing sidelong look at Nick - but Nick continued to watch her nevertheless. As her paw hovered over her pile of hoodies, sweaters and jumpers indecisively, he bit his lip in suspense, and when she finally chose a hoodie she had swiped from him - faded red, with a fox paw on the front - he internally celebrated.

Plunging his paw into his own pile of clean laundry, and felt around until he found what he was looking for, which he had deliberately hidden at the bottom of the pile. Pulling it out (and scattering his clothes about) he triumphantly pulled the hoodie he had been seeking over his head. Taking a moment to bring his grin of anticipation under control, he turned to Judy and said "ready when you are, Hopps."

Judy nodded and turned to look at him, her mouth open to respond, but stood there with her mouth hanging open for a dumbfounded moment. "Nick..."

"Mmm?"

"What are you wearing?"

"Well, you stole my hoodie, so I figured turnabout was fair play."

Judy gave him a disbelieving look, sizing up the pink hoodie with a picture of a carrot on the front, and then turning disbelievingly to her own hoodie pile to check if there was a copy of it there. "How did you even squeeze into it? You're five times my size!"

"I'm lithe, Hopps."

Judy scoffed. "Nope. I don't believe you. Where'd my hoodie really go, Nick?"

"You're looking at it, sweetheart. Gotta say, I think it looks better on me than it did on you."

Judy gave a mock scowl, and without a word of warning she leaped onto the bed he was standing next to and dived for his neck, going for the tag on the hoodie. Nick twisted and intercepted her in mid-air with one arm, but Judy simply scampered up it. With his free arm he managed to find the strings dangling from the neck of the hoodie and pull it tight. Judy scrabbled at it for a moment but then sighed and dropped off him and onto the floor. Nick relaxed for half a second, and immediately regretted it as Judy used her lower height to slip her paws up his hoodie, get a good grip on his shirt, and haul herself up him and inside his hoodie.

A muffled voice came from the lump squirming around Nick's chest. "Now I know this isn't my hoodie, Nick! You might fit in it but we both wouldn't!"

Nick laughed and gave up struggling, standing there and watching as the lump of bunny squirmed around his side, blunt bunny nails scrabbling for purchase in his shirt. While Judy did fit inside it, it was a fairly good fit for Nick alone, and there wasn't all that much slack to work with, and she basically had to wriggle her way inch by inch along his chest. He shrugged, grabbed both his and Judy's wallets, phones and keys, and headed out the door.

"Woooah! Nick, what are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing." He closed the door quietly behind him and ambled down the corridor of the apartment block. "How are you doing in there?"

"You can't stop me, Nick! I'm going to get to that tag!"

"Oh, I have no doubt." He exchanged a nod with the puzzled doorman - a polar bear, naturally - and walked out the front doors of the building, pausing for a moment to accustom himself to the chill of the outside world. As he did so, Judy finally reached her target, and stuck her head out the back of the neck of his hoodie, pulling on the tag as she did and reading it aloud. "Ahah! M-Canidae Large! I knew this wasn't really my hoodie!" She paused in her celebration as the chill of the outside struck her face, which had previously been insulated by Nick's hoodie and bodyheat, and took in the strange looks she was getting from passers-by. She eeped and pulled her head back inside. "Niiick!"

"What? We are heading out to lunch, aren't we?"

He laughed as she headbutted his back, and started to make his way down the sidewalk towards the nearby stretch of restaurants and cafes as the bunny gave up the idea of escaping for now and snuggled up to him.

\---

"Table for one, hon?"

Nick wriggled, and with an 'oof', Judy fell out of Nick's hoodie and landed on her little fluffy tail. "Two, actually."

"Two it is," the pig maître d' agreed happily, making a note on her pad and leading them over to a table. The Lunchbox was an eccentric little restaurant, claiming in a variety of sizes on the door that they'd serve anyone, and the terraced floorplan had a variety of table sizes all centered around a huge, roaring fire that beat back the cold of Tundratown. In the kitchen, half-submerged under the highest tier of the smallest table, dishes of every conceivable size flowed out, carried by the chefs themselves when things were quiet and they could spare a minute or two to chat to their customers, and Nick had seen a giraffe, an elephant and a rabbit among them. He figured that here a rabbit could eat with a fox without anyone batting an eye.

Nick and Judy slid into the seats they had been lead into in the small tier, and the pig told them that someone would be with them shortly to take their order and returned to her post by the door. Judy went from smiling a thank-you at the pig to a glare directed at Nick, who bit back a chuckle. Instead, he explained. "I hid your hoodie under the sheets of the other bed. Got this off an online store."

"Just to play a prank?"

"Not just to play a prank. It's pretty comfy. And I'm short of hoodies lately." He gave her a mock-glare, and she wriggled self-consciously in her seat a little.

"I can't help it. They're warm and fluffy and they smell like you. But seriously, Nick, it's a girl's hoodie! And it's pink!"

"Yeah, the pockets can barely hold anything and it's not that warm because the lining is shit, but the trade-off is it's a really nice slim fit. Just look at how I fill this baby out." Judy gave him a confused look. "Remember Jackie? The grey fox guy I dated? Made me realize that most people outside the species can't tell gender cues, so they fall back on clothing, the colour and general appearance. That's when me and Finnick started cross-dressing sometimes during hustles." They were briefly interrupted by a young goat waitress who took their drink orders, and after she had jotted them down and left he continued on. "That eventually lead to the Finnick-dressed-as-a-baby part of the Pawpsicle hustle, since he figured if they can't tell gender, they wouldn't be tell the difference between a baby red and an adult fennec. Anyway, I stewed on that thought for a while, and after a while I started to think that if most mammals couldn't tell my obvious manliness from my smell or the size of my teeth, then I don't really care what they think my gender is." He shrugged. "Not the most earth-shattering of revelations, but it does mean I stopped caring whether the clothes I wear are for males or females. I mostly stuck with guy clothes because they're usually cheaper, but some girls clothes are really good at showing off my physique. Especially now that I've got all these cop muscles."

"Huh." Judy sat there, thinking that over for a while. "I guess a little bit of an identity crisis is an occupational hazard for hustlers."

"Oh, yeah. Why do you think Finnick practically oozes machismo? He's trying to hold that at bay as best he can."

Their drinks arrived - a pair of milkshakes that were among the cafe's specialties - and another waitress, this time a tiger, asked their orders. Judy went with a salad, which sounded simple enough, but rabbits take salads seriously, and she recited a list of specifications that the tiger dutifully jotted down, concealing a roll of her eyes with what was probably long practice. When Nick went with the fried calamari rings and chips she seemed a lot more approving.

The conversation trailing off, Nick took the opportunity to look around the place for the first time. It was about half-full, and though most couples and groups were single-species, there were enough mixed ones that he and Judy didn't stand out. Despite the roaring fire, the Lunchbox wasn't exactly a romantic scene, so unless they started being blatant it was likely nobody would assume that they were a couple.

It was a reflex to worry about that, much as he tried to stop it. The 'sly fox' had gotten a lot more respect since he started spending most of his time in police blues, though he had still had a couple of uncomfortable encounters when he was off-duty. And he didn't want any of that to splash back onto Judy, especially since he knew that there were still people out there who were against pred-prey couples, and they were still pretty riled up after the Nighthowler business.

He never voiced any of those concerns to Judy, though. He knew that she wouldn't care about any possible societal backlash to herself, since it'd be nothing compared to what she faced to become a bunny cop. And the knowledge that Judy could take care of herself quieted most of his concerns.

Most of them.

Still, hadn't Judy had taken him to task for this exact thing? 'Emotional risk management', she'd called it. She was right, too. He couldn't dwell on every possible thing that could ever go wrong without sabotaging the relationship.

He tuned back in to reality to find Judy draining the last of her milkshake, trying to suck up the last few drops without making too much of a slurping noise. She finally gave up and set the cup down on the table with a satisfied hum, sitting back in their chair. "I really love the milkshakes here!" She leaned in and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you think it's true they use real dairy?"

Nick smiled. "The permits for that are ridiculous. It's probably just oat milk or something."

\---

The rest of lunch was uneventful, apart from Judy trying a calamari ring after Nick mentioned they tasted a lot like onion rings, and then munching her way through half of them. In retaliation, Nick ordered the same thing as her for dessert so that she couldn't 'just try' any of his, and she rolled her eyes at him for it, though they both ended up thoroughly enjoying their icecream with raspberry sauce. After they paid - well, after Nick paid, having won the usual playful argument about who was paying because he still had Judy's wallet - they started to head home, and Judy visibly reeled from the impact of the weather. With just a little urging, she crawled up Nick's back and inside Nick's new hoodie, stuck her head out the neck and rested her chin on Nick's shoulder, and the two of them ignored all the strange looks they got all the way home.


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't want to be the one to break this romance because seriously you are freaking adorable right now but are you sure that the no kids thing won't be a thing? I mean, biology wasn't my strong suit in school, but I'm preeetty sure rabbits and foxes can't have babies. Not even weird sterile hybrid babies." Fru-Fru and Judy were comfortably ensconced in a private table in the rear of a classy bar that Judy would normally have to flash her badge to even get a glance in the door of, and halfway through a bottle of sherry. Most of that had been Judy's work, though Fru-Fru had worked her way through a respectable portion of her own. Looming nearby was the intimidating yet discrete bulk of one of her polar bear bodyguards, close enough to be at hand but far enough away that he couldn't overhear them.

"I have almost three hundred siblings, Fru. Even if I don't have kids, it's not like it'll dead-end the family name."

"Well that makes things easier! I mean, me, I'm lucky I found my sweetie and that he was a shrew, or I never would have heard the end of it from daddy. Then I would have had to found a sperm donor and UGH. I didn't want to get knocked up from a syringe, I wanted mine fresh from the tap. Lots more fun that way."

"Oh my god, Fru." Judy shook her head, then had to fight down a momentary disorientation from doing so.

\---

Time had passed, and so had more of the sherry. "I was all like 'but I trust Judy!' and daddy was all 'yes, and Judy can trust us not to put her in a position where she has to choose between loyalty to us and loyalty to the law' or something like that, so he took the price of a new safehouse out of my allowance! That was like half of that week's playing around money gone right away. But now that I know that it lead to you finding your sweetheart it was SO worth it. And besides, after you two are done with the place I'll rent it out or sell it or something and probably get more back than daddy took from me for it."

"Oh my god Fru, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize it'd be a bother to you-"

"Do. Not. Even. It was barely a thing."

"You're the best, Fru."

"I know, right?"

\---

More time had passed. The bottle had been polished off. Judy and Fru-Fru had started singing their way through Gazelle's greatest hits, and though the bar knew better than to give the boot to the daughter of Mister Big, some sense of responsibility had asserted itself and Judy had lead the two of them out and into the car, where they had been able to continue their impromptu karaoke session with the assistance of the car's speaker system to sing along to. Afterwards, Fru-Fru had told the driver to drop Judy home, and soon after Nick answered a knock at the door to get a drunken rabbit throwing herself at him, escorted by a stoic polar bear. Nick oof'd at Judy's impact, then looked up at the mountain of bear. "Kevin."

"Nick."

They exchanged a nod, then the bear ambled off down the corridor. Nick closed the door and half-carried, half-pulled Judy further into the apartment. "Well, looks like you and Fru had fun."

"Fru is the best!" Judy shouted giddily into Nick's chest.

"Should've seen her when she was a baby. Vicious little thing, had a taste for fox fingers. She drew blood once, and did you know shrews were venomous? I didn't. That was not a fun couple of days."

Judy giggled in response, and then eeped as Nick gathered her up in her arms and tossed her atop the bed he had dragged her to. "Nick!"

"What? It's definitely time for you to sleep it off, Carrots. I could hear you singing 'Hips Don't Lie' as your car came up the street."

"I'm definitely too awake to go to sleep, though." She wriggled over to the edge of the bed and batted her eyes at Nick. "Maybe you could help tire me out, hmm?"

Nick looked up at her. "No can do. You are thoroughly drunk, sweetheart."

"I was thoroughly drunk when you ate me out, too!"

"We both were. We were on a level playing field. But when I'm stone cold sober and you're utterly sloshed, that's not the time to be exploring new frontiers."

Judy gave him a long, pouty, thoughtful look, then brightened and rolled off the bed, landing unsteadily on her feet. She hopped over to the fridge and pulled it open, pointing at the blue bottles inside. "Well then you'll just have to catch up! Grab a bottle and get swigging, mister!"

"If I do, will you let me finish my paperwork?"

"Yep!" She grabbed one of the bottles and hopped over to him and started poking the bottle into his side and whispering "driiink meee, Niiick". He finally relented, used his claws to pop off the cork in a practiced motion, and took a swig to satisfy her. She followed him over to the chair and managed to follow him into the seat on the second try.

\---

As he had planned, Nick never did get the chance to fully catch up. Soon after he started drinking, Judy got distracted in her quest by snuggling into the fur of his chest, and started muffledly proclaiming her desire to impregnate him so he'd grow a dewlap and she could live in it. When he'd decided where to start on what was wrong with that and pointed out that a bunny couldn't impregnate a fox, he'd had to snatch his phone away from her after she'd pickpocketed it (how was she still so nimble?) to stop her from calling Finnick, and then she'd complained that she needed Finnick to help out here because him and Nick would make such cute babies together. And now he was mildly buzzed and with a snoozing bunny curled up on his chest.

He recorked the bottle of wine and started stroking Judy's ears softly. Something about the warmth of her on his chest and her breath softly tickling his neck fur was hypnotic, and he found himself on the edge of sleep. Shaking himself slightly, he fished his pen out of the edge of the cushion where it had fallen and resumed work on his paperwork as best he could, reasonably certain he was still sober enough to complete it and making a mental note to double-check it in the morning.

\---

Nick was half-awoken by the sound of a flushing toilet, then closed his eyes again. A few moments later he oof'd as for the second time that night, an unexpected bunny hit him in the chest. He looked down and saw a contrite bunny looking up at him sheepishly. "Sorry, Nick. I thought you were further over."

"That's fine. I didn't mean to fall asleep anyway, I was trying to catch up on paperwork."

"Sooo..." Nick looked at her expectantly. "Am I sober enough now?"

"Say 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers'."

"Peter Piper picked a peck of peckled pickers. I mean- damn it, Nick, I'm no good at those sober!"

"That's what they all say, sweetheart."

"And that's why tongue twisters aren't a sobriety test! Can't you get me to do walk-and-turn?"

"What, and have you leave my chest?"

"Good point." There was a long, comfortable moment as she burrowed in deeper. "Is it just about me maybe being a little bit drunk?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if I came up to you tomorrow stone cold sober and tore of all my clothes and demanded you have your way with me, would you?"

Nick chuckled and ran his paw over Judy's cheek. "Absolutely."

"Promise?"

"Promise." They sat in comfortable silence for a while. "What's brought this on?"

"I just..." Judy sighed. "I'm just being silly. I always expected that in a relationship I'd be the one smacking grabby paws away and pumping the brakes when things went too fast, but instead you're the one doing it. I guess I just feel a little insecure."

"Judy..." She looked up at him. "I am utterly terrified of screwing this up. You realize that, right?" Her rapid blinking in response made it clear she didn't. "You are, paws down, the most important person in my life. You made me want to completely transform myself, and then helped me do it every step of the way. The thought of ruining that because we made a misstep on this whole relationship thing..." He sighed and shook himself slightly. "Consider it a tribute to how incredibly attracted I am to you that I didn't leave well enough alone with us as friends and partners. That's why I'm taking things agonizingly slow."

"Oh, Nick." She somehow managed to snuggle deeper into his chest as she wrapped her arms as best she could around his chest. "I don't know whether that's touching or frustrating."

"Let's go with touching."

"I've been trying to get you to go with touching all night!" Judy snickered at her own joke into Nick's chest, and he seriously considered rolling over and dumping her off the chair and onto the floor. Instead, he picked up the most recently completed scrap of paperwork and scanned it. "Well, it seems like I'm not going to get any useful work done in this state. This incident report turned into a detailed examination of how you look in a police uniform."

"Gimme." Judy reached out to grab it and Nick pulled it out of her reach.

"Come on, Judy. Time for bed, for both of us."

\---

The next morning was not a fun morning for Judy. Her eyes cracked open, then immediately slammed close as she whimpered, and was grateful to feel Nick stirring below her. "Nick?"

"Mmm?"

"What's sherry?"

"Type of fortified wine."

"Oh." That explains it, she thought blearily to herself. She had just thought it was a type of wine and polished off almost an entire bottle herself.

Without prompting, Nick slid out from under her and out of bed and fetched her a glass of water and some painkillers, then returned to the bed so she could bury herself in his fur while indulging in piteous whining.

Eventually, the painkillers kicked in. Or perhaps she fell asleep, it was hard to tell. But she found herself ready to start the day, and managed to pry herself away from Nick and drag herself to the bathroom, where she started to clean herself off as she sorted through her memories of the night before.

Strangely, she didn't feel embarrassed. Well, sticking her head out the window of the car and singing at the top of her lungs about how her hips don't lie, that was embarrassing. But the rest of it? Nick already knew she was hot for him, where was the shame in making that clear? Nothing she had said had been wrong. Not even the part about Finnick.

And as she washed off the last of the shampoo, she came to a decision.

\---

"Hey Nick."

"Mmm?" He glanced up from his paperwork, then froze as Judy slowly and deliberately let the towel drop from her bare body.

"I demand that you have your way with me."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This is the chapter I changed the rating to an M for. As the way the last chapter ended may suggest, it is very sexual, above and beyond the 'mild sexual content' tag on this story. I've tried to keep it from going into full-on smut, but I may have failed. Decide for yourself whether you want to read this chapter.

"I demand that you have your way with me."

A lesser fox would have frozen at being put on the spot like that. But Nick had a lifetime of leaping for the door when opportunity knocked to fall back on. So when Judy made her demand, there was barely a pause before the paperwork he had been occupied with was fluttering to the ground and Nick had literally made that leap.

Judy would have been bowled over if Nick's paw hadn't wrapped around her to steady her. In an instant Nick's nose was buried in the fur of Judy's chest. There were other things he wanted to do now that he was explicitly freed from their slow dance of gentle escalations - a lot of things - but with Judy freshly clean before him, it was finally time for him to experience her smell directly, that frustratingly elusive smell of Judy that kept being concealed behind the fabric of her bodysuit or the spicier smell of her sweat or even his own scent, which she seemed to go out of her way to cover herself in. With all of his previous dating experience consisting of various types of foxes, being unable to constantly smell his partner had been obscurely frustrating on a bone-deep instinctive level. But now, there was no obstruction.

He had nothing he could compare the smell of Judy with. There were similarities to every other rabbit he had ever encountered, of course, but the smell of Judy specifically had become so laden with positive associations that to him it was utterly unique. And he was so used to smelling her faintly or indirectly that with his nose buried in her chest fluff, he was utterly dumbfounded by the wave of sense memories it evoked. Hundreds of hours spent entwined with this wonderful bunny flashed by his eyes in an instant.

While he had been occupied, Judy had recovered from her surprise and placed her paws on either side of his head, and she gently lifted it until his mouth was lined up with hers and placed a gentle but insistent kiss on it. With his lungs and head still full of the smell of rabbit, all he could do was comply, and their tongues dueled enthusiastically, the size difference making it as awkward as always but it had reached a point where that awkwardness was familiar and added to instead of detracting from the moment.

Without breaking the kiss, Nick started to let his paws wander. Judy's body was fascinating to him, and not just for the obvious reason of his attraction to her. Even though she was just over half his height and, since he had filled out from the Academy, maybe a fifth his weight, she was still damn near a match for him when it came to pure strength and ridiculously agile to boot. In short, she was incredibly fit, and her body reflected that. Beneath the soft rabbit fur and delicate rabbit skin was pure rabbit muscle, and he could feel them moving and tensing under his pawpads as Judy shifted her arms around his shoulders and- uh-oh.

With the resignation of someone that had been flipped by Judy dozens of times, he braced himself as her leg circled around his and he was pushed backwards. But instead of the usual violent impact, she lowered him steadily but firmly onto the ground, not letting the kiss be broken until the last second. When his back hit the floor, he was left looking up at Judy who was sitting astride his chest, and he raised his eyebrow in a silent question.

"You're overdressed, Nick," she panted, patting her paws on his shirt in demonstration.

"Who's having their way with who here?" he replied, but complied, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt and then giving Judy a look, since her bare bunny butt was blocking his access to the next one down. She shuffled up his chest to sit practically straddling his neck, and as he continued to undo the buttons of his shirt he became aware of an entirely different Judy smell - one he had only had a close encounter with once, and his memories of that were fogged by wine. Suddenly, becoming naked took on a whole new urgency for him, and it was a testament to his willpower that he didn't tear the buttons clean off his shirt.

Just as he was trying to wriggle out of his pants, Judy - who, being mere inches away from his face, had a fantastic vantage point - seemingly realized what was causing his rapidly twitching nose. She dipped a paw out of Nick's sight, and bit her lip as she rubbed. Then she brought her paw back into view, now damp, and held it enticingly above his nose. He inhaled deeply, and moaned deep in his throat. His tongue flicked out, but Judy pulled her paw clear. 

Truth be told, he was playing it up a bit for Judy. While Judy's smell was endlessly fascinating to him and were loaded down with positive associations, and the smell of a rabbit in general and this rabbit in particular had completely taken over his predatory instincts, rabbit sex pheromones simply didn't have any instinctive significance for a fox, not in the way a fox in heat would, or to a lesser extent any other canid. But that was alright, he thought to himself. Judging by how quickly his nose had been trained on Judy's normal smell, it shouldn't be long until he started being entranced by rabbit pheromones, and in the meantime his conscious mind was absolutely enthralled even if not all of his instincts were.

While he had been mulling that over - which seemed to Judy like an entranced fox, so that worked out alright - Judy had turned to see what Nick's de-pantsing had exposed, and froze. She had seen Nick naked quite a few times by this point, but not quite in this state, and the sheer size disparity between what she was looking at and the size of what her body was intended to take was intimidating for a brief moment. But then Judy's essential nature took over, and she was filled with determination, even in the face of a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. But while she was recovering from her shock, Nick had struck.

His paws on either side of her, he lifted her up and spun her so that her body was pointing in the direction she had been looking, then pushed gently on her back - gentle enough that if she hadn't gone along with the movement, she would have remained upright - until her nose was buried in the fur of Nick's lower belly, and she was almost touching with the nose the part of her anatomy that had so entranced her a moment ago. But before she could decide how to take advantage of this new position, the intent of Nick's plan became clear as his muzzle slipped between her legs and his tongue went to work.

It wasn't the first time, of course. But the previous time was done in a haze of blueberry wine, which dulled both the sensations at the time and her memories after the fact, and so she was prepared for it to feel good but not nearly as prepared enough. She practically melted into Nick's fur, her arms and legs gone limp, and the only deliberate movement to nuzzle her face deeper into Nick's belly, which partially muffled her moans and gasps. Time dissolved into meaninglessness, and by the time it had even occurred to her that she could return the favour, a familiar feeling had begun to build deep in her abdomen, scattering her thoughts even further. Using all she had to claw together enough of her mind to act, Judy wriggled free of Nick's probing tongue and slipped off of him and onto the carpet, hitting it with a gasp, both at the impact and how cool it was compared to Nick's wonderful fur. He looked down at her, his muzzle so soaked it was dripping and his expression concerned. "Something wrong?"

She looked up at him, panting as she tried to regain her breath. "God no! Exactly not wrong. But if you keep that up I won't last much longer."

Nick looked pleased and slightly smug at that. "Can't bunny girls do multiple?"

"Some can? I've never managed it but I've never had a partner as good as you before." Nick's smiled widened at that. "But we can try it another time. I don't want to risk not having another in me and throw off the rest of what I plan for you to be doing to me today."

"Judy Hopps avoiding over-ambition! This really is a day for firsts."

"Oh, shush." She pushed at his muzzle playfully and he responded by leaning over and nuzzling her, and she shrieked and wriggled away again as he smeared her own juices over her fur. "Niiick!"

\---

Though spontaneity had sparked this encounter, when given a moment to catch her breath, the part of Judy that was neat and organized took over, and she and Nick relocated to the bed. To the spare bed, actually - it had never seen a moment's use since Judy had made it back when they had first moved in, so if they were going to make a mess it might as well be there rather than in their nice comfortable blanket warren.

"I'm surprised you're still, well, up," Judy confessed with a glance down Nick's body as they settled down onto the bed, side by side and face to face. "I was too distracted to pay you any attention earlier."

Nick eyed her incredulously. "I had a moaning, quivering naked bunny girl draped over my chest. You think there was any chance I'm going limp at all? You give yourself too little credit."

Judy blushed but smiled in response, leaning in to give him a grateful peck on the lips. While he was occupied with that, she pushed at his shoulder and he obligingly rolled over onto his back, and the part of him now pointing up at the ceiling once again struck Judy - metaphorically speaking - with it's size.

Seeing Judy's gaze, and the slightly intimidated look on her face, Nick spoke up. "You know, it's okay to not climb a mountain all at once." Nick said, half jokingly and half actual concern.

If that was meant to dissuade her, it did the exact opposite. Judy stood up and walked closer to the object of her attention. "A mountain? Overstating things a little, aren't you?" Judy straddled Nick's hips and looked down, biting her lip at the size. "Then again..." But before she could start to doubt herself, she lifted her weight onto her knees and rolled her hips forward. The contact didn't feel nearly as good as Nick's tongue had, but that just let her pay attention to Nick's expression as she rubbed back and forth. Either Nick was really sensitive, she noted with surprise, or he had really gotten worked up earlier.

Before long everything was nice and slick, but Judy had started to entertain herself by playing with Nick with her paws and watching how his expression changed, and even managed to extract a few gasps and whines from him. Before long he reached out and placed his paws on her hips to stop her, and panted out "I thought the idea was for this to not end early, sweetheart." Judy smiled sheepishly, realizing she had gotten a little carried away, so before she could think too much about it and dissuade herself, she had lifted herself up, lined Nick up with her paws, and slowly lowered herself down onto him.

Her expectations had been very mixed, and she had run through a dozen different scenarios for how this would go in her head, but luckily biology was on her side. The tapered shape allowed her to find her limit and then gently push past it, and then fall back as needed. The only difficulty was that her legs were quickly proving unreliable. At first, the feelings seemed less intense than those that Nick's tongue had given her, but as she worked her way down they mounted, growing ever greater until she was in serious danger of collapsing, and then Nick shifted his paws from her hips to hers, which had been resting on his stomach. They intertwined, Nick's pawpads against Judy's furry paws, and she leaned over and let some of her weight fall on Nick's arms as she focused on pushing her limits further and further, and then Nick's hips had started to thrust back to meet her motions.

Later, neither would be able to tell who finished first, because neither of them stopped when they did, too lost in pleasure and in each other's gaze for the thought of stopping to even occur to them. All they knew is that at some point Judy's legs gave out and she collapsed forward onto Nick's chest, and he let her paws go to hold her against him, both of them panting, their fur significantly matted and the blankets in definite need of laundering.

Finally, Judy mustered enough strength to ask, "how far down did I get?"

"You're not going to be satisfied with 'far enough', are you?" Her strength spent, she had nothing left to lift her head and give Nick a mock glare, so she did it into his chest instead. Fortunately, he continued on. "Damn near down to the knot. You continue to impress me, Carrots."

Judy basked in pride at his words, both at her accomplishment and the compliment, too lost in the moment to question herself about finding joy in that.

"Judy?"

"Mm?"

"Is this a bad time to tell you I love you?"

"There's no bad time for that, you goof," she replied, lifting her head to smile fondly up at him. "But I am going to need you to repeat it when you're not completely sexed out."

"I'll make a note."

"Good. And just so you know: I love you too."


	5. Chapter 5

It was far too early to sleep. It was still morning, after all. But the overwhelming need to snuggle lead them both to bed anyway after they finished washing off. Or at least, washing most of it off. As they curled up together inside the blanket warren in one of their usual positions - face-to-face, Nick's head on top of Judy's - Nick discovered something that didn't come off so easy.

"Carrots, why do I still smell like you?"

Judy sniffed, then looked down Nick's body. "Oh, right. Remember when I told you about rabbit scent glands?"

"One on the chin, one private, right?"

"Right. Well, the private one is actually two, one on either side of, erm, down there."

Judy blushed as Nick shot her an amused look. "Seriously? We just had sex and you're going with 'down there'?"

"Well, what should I say? 'Vagina' just feels childish, and you can't say 'pussy' any more without pissing off the Feline Anti-Defamation League..."

"What about bunny cunny?"

"You call it that and you're not going to see it again."

"Fair enough."

"So anyway, that's going to last, um, a while. Probably indefinitely if we keep it up. You can use rabbit shampoo if you want to get rid of it-"

"No, of course not. I've been marked by a rabbit for weeks now, remember?"

Judy smiled at Nick and snuggled in closer, deliberately chinning him again for good measure.

\---

"I think we're going to have to move in together." Judy gave Nick a confused look. "I mean after the hibernation leave is over, and we're back Downtown."

"Oh, right. I think you're right. I'd be a wreck without you to snuggle with." To be honest, Judy had deliberately avoided thinking about that. She was so used to spending every night wrapped up in Nick's arms that the thought of going back to going without was deeply uncomfortable. "But your place isn't an option..."

"My place is a palace."

"Your place is literally unlivable. It's not even zoned for residential. I'm surprised the ZPD let you list it as your mailing address."

"I gave them a PO box."

"Of course you did. But my place..."

"Is crowded enough with one?"

"It'd be crowded plenty with zero, thanks to my neighbours. It's enough to sleep and keep my stuff in, but not really a place to live. For us to live."

"We'll work something out. We're only halfway through hibernation leave, after all."

\---

After their conversation had trailed off and they had started a long, lazy make-out session, they were interrupted by Judy's stomach growling, which sparked off a whole other discussion: how to feed themselves without leaving their sanctuary of warmth and kisses.

"We could call for pizza," Nick suggested.

"Then one of us is going to have to leave the bed to answer the door. And put on more clothes to answer the door, unless you feel like giving the delivery boy a show." Both were wearing underwear, Nick boxers and Judy panties, more to avoid the temptation to ruin their only remaining bed than out of modesty.

"Oh."

"And then we'd both have to leave it anyway - or at least get on top of the sheets - to eat it or we'd end up getting sauce all over the place."

"Crap."

They ended up calling for pizza anyway, after a long, lazy, meandering discussion decided it was the lesser of evils. At least they could make the call from the bed and not leave it until it actually arrived. Actually, Nick discovered, a call wasn't necessary at all - the local pizza shop had a web store. Judy snuggled her back into Nick's chest so they could both watch the delivery timer tick down through lazy, half-lidded eyes. Every time Judy's stomach rumbled, Nick responded by tickling it with his claws and Judy batted his paws away, then pulled them back to rest on her stomach.

But just as Nick was starting to mentally prepare himself for the trip into the cold (his instinctive desire to provide food was flaring up again), Judy's phone started to ring. After she had darted out to grab it and returned to Nick's embrace before the cold had time to penetrate her fur, she looked at the caller ID and froze up. She had been expecting it to be either someone from work or Fru-Fru, but instead it was an incoming video call from her parents. Panicking, she hit the button to accept an audio call only before answering the call.

"Hello?"

"Judy!" came Bonnie's voice. "Is something wrong with your phone, dear? Your video isn't coming through."

"Hi, mom. I turned it off, I'm not dressed."

"Not dressed? I thought you were in that really cold district, how could you be not dressed?"

"I, uh-"

"Oh, don't tell me. Do you have company, dear?"

"Mom!"

"Hi, Judy's boyfriend! Wait, is he your boyfriend? Is he even a he? I mean you've been in the big city for a while, I hear stories about how things are there-"

"Oh my god, I'm not-"

"I'm not judging, dear. You know Jane Velveteen, from down the road? One of her daughters is involved with a mountain pika girl."

"He's a he, alright? And yes, he's my boyfriend!" Judy thought for a moment, then smacked her paw against her face when she realized she'd been played. "Damn it, mom..."

"Ha! I've still got it. So tell me about him."

Judy looked up from her phone to Nick, her expression conflicted. Nick patted her stomach comfortingly, and spoke up. "Hi, Mrs Hopps."

"I know that voice-" there was a gasp from Bonnie. "You're her fox partner! Nicholas, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Ha, I knew it! Stu! Judy's got a boyfriend!"

Stu's faint reply could just be heard over the speaker. "Is it that fox of hers?"

Judy groaned and headbutted the phone, and a moment later there was a knock on the door. "That'll be the pizza," Nick said as he took the opportunity to escape, burrowing out of the blankets.

Bonnie whistled. "Pizza and nudity? I think I should leave you two be. But do call us when you've got a moment free, I'd love to hear the details."

Judy groaned and mumbled, "okay, mom."

"Bye, dear! Love you! Give our best to your fox!"

"Love you too."

She hung up, and the little pocket of warmth under the blankets was plunged into darkness as the screen went black. She wallowed in embarrassment while listening to the muffled sound of Nick paying for the pizza. Not long after that the bed shifted under her as Nick jumped atop it, and just as she was bracing herself to leave the warmth, Nick dived on the lump in the blankets and burrowed his muzzle into it. Judy squealed and wriggled free, dodging his paws as he tried to grab her, and quickly squirmed her way to the edge of the blankets.

"Nick! Cut it-" the playful outrage in her voice turned to shock in an instant. "Sweet cheese and crackers, did you seriously not put on pants to answer the door?"

"Hey, I'm still decent, and there's nothing wrong with airing out your fur in the open air now and then. I'm sure the delivery boy's seen worse. Though now that you mention it the colt did look a bit shocked..."

Judy rolled her eyes, and waited for Nick to sit down so she could snuggle back into him, pulling the cardboard pizza box across the bed, the aroma rising from it causing her stomach rumbling to begin anew. When Nick finally sat himself down against a drift of blankets, Judy collapsed against him a little harder than necessary. "Don't think that just because I'm too hungry to follow up on this right now, that we're not going to talk about your exhibitionism. I remember how familiar you were with that naturalist society."

"Whatever you say, officer." Nick cracked open the pizza box, and both of them feasted their eyes. Half carrots and barbecue sauce, half bugmeat, olives, tomato and capsicum.

\---

"I can't believe we ate the whole thing."

Judy just groaned wordlessly in contentment somehow blended with distress from her position flopped over Nick's chest.

"I also can't believe you ate half of my side. I'm seriously starting to wonder if you bunnies aren't secretly preds."

"Oh no, you've found us out. Sorry it came to this, Nick." Judy squirmed upwards and begun to gnaw on the fur at Nick's neck, giving up after a moment. "Damn. You're too fluffy to eat."

"You're getting- come here." He picked Judy up and lifted her up to mouth level. "Yeah, look, you've got barbecue sauce all over your mouth. And all over my neck now, too." Judy just smiled at him, about three quarters lost to a food coma. Nick leaned closer and Judy puckered up for a kiss, only to sputter as Nick started to lick her face clean. She wriggled in his grip for a moment, then settled down and let him finish, flopping bonelessly back down onto him once he was done and he let her go. He looked down at her, contentedly flopped over him, and decided now was as good a time as any. "So, your parents know now."

Judy sighed and propped herself up on her elbows. "Not really how I planned to break the news to them, but it could have gone worse."

"So our families know, we're talking about moving in together, the L-word has been invoked... I'm pretty sure we've ticked all the boxes for this to be a serious relationship."

"Mmm. You're right." Judy bit her lip in worried thought. "It was barely a month ago that we were 'something'. Are we going too fast?"

"I don't think so. We've spent almost every night together, so that's almost thirty dates. We just compressed things a bit."

Judy mulled that over before nodding and relaxing. "I suppose you're right. Okay, Nick, you're right. This is a serious relationship. Does that really change anything, though?"

"I guess not," Nick replied, but he smiled anyway. He folded his arms over Judy's back as she snuggled deeper into his embrace, and they both drifted off into a doze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, the Winter Snuggles tale weighs in at just under thirty thousand words. It has taken Nick and Judy from friends and coworkers to a serious (if fledgling) romantic relationship over the course of about a month in-universe, and at this point the transformation is pretty much complete.
> 
> This doesn't mean I'm going to abandon the premise entirely, but I am going to move my attention to other stories for the time being. If I do have ideas for further adventures in the lives of these two, I will come back to explore them, either as additional chapters to this story or as part of a future Winter Snuggles 3: Electric Snuggaloo. But I won't continue it just for the sake of continuing it.
> 
> My sincerest thanks to everyone that has joined me on this journey. I write so that others can read what I have written, and without all of you, this story would not exist.


End file.
